Beautifully engraved, of chaste design, and of quaint shape, the Cape "triangulars" are, and always have been, favourites; but they have been out-distanced, as regards profitable investment records, by the two roughly-executed stamps, of similar design and shape, printed from hurriedly made stereotyped blocks to meet a temporary shortness of the ordinary One Penny and Fourpence. These provisionals, erroneously called (as they always will be) "wood-blocks," were issued early in 1861, and the ordinary specimens are of considerable scarcity even used, and very difficult of acquisition unpostmarked; much more then are the errors, caused by the unintentional inclusion in the group of stereotypes of each value of one block of the other denomination. These two stamps--the One Penny in blue, and the Four Pence in red, instead of _vice versâ_--are well-known rarities used, and there are only three known copies in an unused condition; one of these, obtained by its owner during the period when the wood-blocks were in issue at "face," realised five-and-thirty years later no less than £500. "Prodigious," but true! Another desirable Cape stamp owes its rarity to having been printed in a small quantity on a paper in use for a short time only--the Five Shillings, orange-yellow, of 1883, on paper watermarked with a Crown and "CA". For some three to four years, 1883-87, these stamps were purchasable unused at the post-office; and now--£100, perhaps. Cayman Islands, that hotbed of official speculation and jobbery, furnishes a more modern instance--instances would be more correct--of sudden and excessive rise in price, if not in philatelic worth; certain provisionals, made by surcharging higher value stamps to meet the usual, and often avoidable, shortage. Fortunate, indeed, from the investors' point of view, are those who, subscribing to some "new issue" service, managed to obtain even single copies of these scarce labels at a small percentage over face. Ceylon! The name raises a vision of the gorgeous East, and, to the philatelist, of rare imperforates, issued in the early days before Philately was. Who in the end of the 'fifties would have thought of investing in, say, a block of four of the Fourpence, dull rose, and, having held it for forty years, receiving the handsome return of--what shall I say?--£750? And yet it would be so. Another Ceylon which has appreciated at a rapid rate is the Two Rupees Fifty Cents issued in 1880; for long it was catalogued and obtainable at 7s. 6d., but on suddenly becoming obsolete (through a change of postal rates) its price began to rise by leaps and bounds, until it is worth about twice as many shillings as it formerly was pence.